Top official gives scope of wiretaps

Tribune news servicesCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Law-enforcement officials are targeting fewer than 100 people in the U.S. for court-approved wiretaps aimed at disrupting terrorist networks, the top U.S. intelligence official said in an interview published Wednesday.

The relatively low number of those under surveillance in this country stands in contrast with "thousands" of people overseas whose calls and e-mails are monitored for possible links to terrorism, according to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.

"If a terrorist calls in and it's another terrorist, I think the American public would want us to do surveillance of that U.S. person," he told the El Paso Times, which released a transcript of the Aug. 14 interview.

Previously, few details about the scope of the U.S.-based surveillance program had been made public.

McConnell made the revelation while visiting El Paso for a conference on border security. In the interview, he explained the distinction between court-sanctioned surveillance of Americans and the kind of warrantless surveillance that U.S. officials can conduct under legislation signed into law by President Bush this month.

The new law allows expanded, warrantless eavesdropping on foreigners' calls and e-mails to people in the U.S., as long as the Americans involved are not considered targets of the investigation.

If the U.S. recipient of a call turns out to be a terrorism suspect, authorities would "just get a warrant," McConnell said. He described the number of such cases as "manageable."

"On the U.S. persons side, it's 100 or less," he said. "And then, the foreign side -- it's in the thousands.

"There's a sense that we're doing massive data mining. In fact, what we're doing is surgical," he said. "A telephone number is surgical. So, if you know what number, you can select it out."

McConnell's comments raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Among his disclosures:

* The private sector assisted with Bush's warrantless surveillance program. AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. "Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies," he said, arguing that they deserve immunity for their help.

* It takes 200 hours to assemble a FISA warrant on a single telephone number.

* A federal court ruled the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program was illegal, prompting the rush in Congress this month to overhaul key espionage provisions.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's ruling earlier this year was a major blow to U.S. spying operations, McConnell said, even as intelligence analysts were expressing alarm that Al Qaeda was regrouping.

"We found ourselves in a position of actually losing ground."

McConnell said the ruling came during a routine court review of the program. It meant the government had to get a court order to trace calls or e-mails that traveled on networks in the U.S., even if the parties at both ends were overseas.

The government obtained a temporary stay enabling it to continue intercepting e-mails and phone calls without individual warrants through May 31, McConnell said, as he began sounding alarms on Capitol Hill that a key piece of the nation's counterterrorism capabilities was about to be crippled.

Those warnings fueled a push in Congress to rewrite laws. The emergency legislation, set to expire in six months, allowed the government to resume its eavesdropping operations without individual warrants.